New CBS affiliate has garage-studio roots

By Nancy McAlisterTimes-Union staff writer,

A Times-Union reporter once said this about Jacksonville's Channel 47: "It's a very, very long distance from TV-47 to Dan Rather."

That was in 1987, when the independent station had weeknight newscasts that totalled about 3 minutes and 43 seconds. The broadcast studio was a former garage, and the news staff consisted of a single individual.

Next month, WTEV TV-47 will, in fact, go the distance. As the city's new CBS affiliate, it becomes home to Rather and The CBS Evening News, as well as all of the other programs in the CBS daily lineup, from The Late Show with David Letterman to Face the Nation. Few would have predicted that for the station that began with stars such as Pat Robertson and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and whose most popular show was once Lawrence Welk.

TV-47 started as nonprofit Christian Television of Jacksonville. The group won the license for the UHF outlet after going up against Malrite Broadcasting Inc. of Cleveland.

The station, which before its launch in August 1980 was changed to a privately held venture headed by Mac Papers executives Thomas and Frank McGehee, had the call letters WXAO -- XAO stood for "Christ, the alpha and the omega" in Greek.

The city's first 24-hour station, it was designed to be a counter to commercial television's sex and violence, showing programs from the Christian Broadcast Network, PTL and the Trinity Broadcasting Network. George H. Ivey III, the first general manager, was a former pastor and host of the syndicated program The 700 Club when it began in Atlanta. An early station slogan was, "You'll love the dove."

Throughout its history, a key challenge for TV-47 has been competing against WAWS TV-30, the city's second independent that signed on soon after. In its first year, TV-47's average audience was 5,000 persons, compared with TV-30's 19,000.

The station's emphasis became more commercial to make it financially viable. Barnaby Jones replaced The 700 Club at 8 p.m. Ivey left, and his replacement was former WTLV TV-12 General Manager Jim Kontoleon, known for his P.T. Barnum promotions and conservative editorials.

By 1983, the station had new call letters, WNFT, upgraded transmitting power and added programming that included more children's fare, sports and prime-time movies. It began to look increasingly like the more brash TV-30. But with TV-30's alliance with the upstart Fox Broadcasting in 1987, the gap widened again.

The McGehees sold the station in 1990 for around $3 million to Palm Beach-based Krypton International Corp. "At the time we sold it, we were awfully glad to be back in the paper business," said Thomas R. McGehee Jr., vice president of Mac Papers, who spoke on behalf of his father. "We are a paper family and have been all our lives. This was something that kind of stretched our creativity."

McGehee said the TV industry is "so segmented now" with the proliferation of channels available via cable and satellite.

A brief move to the Independent Life building and a bankruptcy filing marked TV-47's history in the early 1990s. By then, the station was known for such sci-fi shows as Babylon 5 and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. But records showed the station was losing money. In February 1994, it had a 1 rating, the percentage of total TV households.

Lawrence Welk was once a popular TV-47 personality.

-- File

It was sold to RDS, a Pennsylvania-based investment firm in 1995 for $10 million. Clear Channel Communications, which owns TV-30, took over management of the station, by then associated with the fledgling UPN network. It bought the station in 2000.

Today, WTEV TV-47 is part of Clear Channel's 6-acre media center off Beach Boulevard, near St. Johns Bluff Road. Also home to TV-30, 11 radio stations (seven that Clear Channel owns, four that have a joint sales agreement) and the outdoor billboard division, it is by far the largest media company in Jacksonville, said President Josh McGraw, who oversees some 400 employees.

And TV-47's place in that company is about to become more significant with next month's switch to the city's CBS affiliate.

When he first came to the Jacksonville market as general manager of TV-30, McGraw said his image of TV-47 was that it was "lackluster," with "nothing on it I recall as a viewer turning over to see." A program lineup from that year shows such prime-time fare as Baywatch and the Jacksonville-produced series Pointman.

This TV season, the station boasted that it is one of the top UPN affiliates in the country (ranked No. 7) and the Sept. 26 debut of Enterprise, the fifth series in the Star Trek franchise, was No. 1 in prime time and the station's highest such rating.

Part of the strategy of operating two stations was to maintain separate sales departments, McGraw said, so that one wouldn't be the stepchild. TV-47, once "the phantom of the market," became more visible with, among other additions, a 6:30 p.m. newscast. The station is now a highly profitable entity making "millions of dollars of profit a year."

"We took a station that was bankrupt and not offering a lot and turned it into a station that many days now ranks third among Jacksonville stations," McGraw said. "By Clear Channel coming in and using its buying power and its strength, by consolidating the operation, it made the station financially viable."

McGraw said TV-47's audience is atypical for a UPN station because it reaches a 25- to 54-year-old audience as well as a black audience. An older demographic compatible with many CBS shows is something CBS probably saw as well, he said, since it's similar in skew to WJXT TV-4.

"When we have Fox and CBS, we'll have the market covered," he said, referring to Fox's young demographic. "They're probably the best combination to reach an audience. They're polar opposites in a way."

McGraw says he's not worried about having two network cultures in the same building since key personnel are already in place. He has experience negotiating radio turf issues given all the radio outlets operating under one roof. A good case in point: WROO (The Rooster) (107.3) and WQIK (99.1) are longtime rivals in FM country music whose studios are side by side.

Still, television represents a different type of competition.

"It's a strange position to be in to program against yourself. Unlike radio, if there's a hit song, you can play it on any or all of your radio stations. But with a Seinfeld, only one gets to have it."

Nancy McAlister cam be reached at (904) 359-4370 or via e-mail at nmcalister@jacksonville.com.